Quoted from GotAQuestion:On pinside. A niche forum for highly dedicated dedicated hobbyists with, you must admit, an EXTREMELY pessimistic general view on things.
We know it's lacking features compared to $6000 machines but some random nobody who wants a NIB but doesn't want to pay real NIB prices? Time will tell. There's a demand for it.
I also find it funny that people say "games shouldn't cost $6,195" and "the game that costs $4,000 sucks" in the same thread. People asked for a $4,000 game. Spider Man Home Edition is what $4,000 worth of game gets you. From what I hear, the $4,000-ish HomePin early reception is that it feels cheap too. In allllllllllll my other hobbies there's a familiar saying - "you get what you pay for". I'm not surprised the budget games feels like budget games.
What I think people expect is the current quality of Stern games at about 2k less than the current MSRP. Nobody can understand the minimal increase in game quality from 5-7 years ago to the percentage price increase of today. The two do not correlate.
The current 4k game you refer to is so cheaply made the margin must be incredible. Clearly the folks paying for the SM VE shouldered a lot of the costs (notably the artwork costs).